


The War Camp

by wheel_pen



Series: Loose Gems [25]
Category: Original Work, Troy (2004)
Genre: F/M, Slavery, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 14:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3940705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A captured princess pretends to be a mere peasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War Camp

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things.   
> Inherent in slavery and other forms of subjugation are dubious consent, unhealthy relationships, and violence.  
> I hope you enjoy this original work, which was inspired by many different stories.

_Characters_ :

Adoette: a princess captured in battle, who claims to be a peasant. Rose Byrne

Cahit: an imposing warrior, leader of the Mihribans. Brad Pitt

Emre: Cahit’s young cousin, a warrior

 

            Adoette moved restlessly around the hut. She hadn’t really been out of it in three days, since she was brought there by the warrior who claimed her as a prize of war, and her initial terror had given way to boredom. She had cleaned the place yesterday—much to Cahit’s amusement—and as he appeared to have no legible reading matter or sewing to be done, she found herself frustrated, and much less timid than before.

            She busied herself for a few minutes tying her hair back neatly and smoothing out the wrinkles in her slightly stained gown, not that anyone would notice a few wrinkles around _here_. Then she cautiously pushed aside the leather strips that passed for a door and stuck her head out to survey the rest of the Mihriban’s camp. It was kept cleaner than she expected of a soldiers’ camp, but she’d heard that Cahit imposed more such discipline on his men than other commanders. At the moment the place was deserted—other soldiers were lolling about, drinking and fighting, according to the sounds that drifted to Adoette’s ears, but Cahit and his Mihribans were drilling on the north plain.

            This meant, of course, that there was no one to stop her as she stepped over the threshold of the hut. She wasn’t doing anything dangerous just yet, she told herself; she could just be on her way to answer nature’s call in the nearby bushes. Adoette took another step and then another; now she should start to turn, if she were really going to the bushes. Instead, she moved forward again, as carefully as if she feared the ground might collapse beneath her. Again—now she stood in the middle of the dirt path between the huts. Again, and again, and she could feel the cool, salty breeze from the ocean sweep over her, blowing away the stale air of the hut. A few more steps and she was on grass again. A few more, and she was going down the little knoll that led to the beach, with the sparkling blue sea beyond. Just a few more, and she would feel the hot, golden sand beneath her feet—

            Suddenly there was a shout from the top of the hill, and Adoette saw someone barreling down after her. Instinctively she ran, but she didn’t get far before something slammed into her with the force of a runaway chariot and knocked her down into the sand. The sharp granules dug into her skin and her ankle throbbed where it had twisted over a stick.

            “Get off me!” she howled, tears of fury beading in her eyes. She flailed madly at the heavy weight above her—it might have been trying to hold her down, or it might have been trying to untangle itself from her, it was hard to tell. Either way, she was livid at having her walk to the sea so abruptly ended.

            Another shadow towered over her and she was pulled to her feet as easily as if she were a toy. “ _What_ are you doing?” Cahit demanded, more bemused than anything else, as Adoette’s attacker struggled up on his own—Adoette recognized him as Cahit’s ganglier young cousin, Emre.

            “She was trying to escape,” Emre offered, beginning to look a bit sheepish.

            “I was _not_!” Adoette shouted at him, her temper lost. As he was about a foot taller than she was, she had to shout upwards. “I was going for a _walk_!”

            “You were _running_!” Emre pointed out, glancing nervously at his cousin.

            “Because you were _chasing_ me!” Adoette shot back. She shifted her weight and her ankle twinged. “Ow!” She put her hands on the leather breastplate of his armor and shoved as hard as she could, heedless of her surroundings; startled, Emre stumbled back. “You twisted my ankle, you overgrown—“

            She was about to shove him again when Cahit decided to break it up by wrapping his arms around her—his command to stop was unnecessary, as she might as well have been bound by iron bands at that point. “Be still,” he told her when she squirmed angrily. He picked her up and put her down facing the camp. “Go back to the hut,” he ordered, giving her a nudge. Mustering what dignity she had left—sand-scraped and bedraggled as she was now—Adoette limped back up the knoll.

            As soon as she was over it, Cahit turned back to Emre with a barely concealed grin. “Did she hurt you, cousin?”

            Emre’s expression was appropriately hangdog. “I thought she was running away,” he repeated with a sigh.

            “Perhaps she was going to swim to freedom,” Cahit deadpanned, letting his cousin squirm under his gaze.

            “Sorry,” Emre finally muttered, kicking at a pile of sand like the awkward teenager he had been not too long ago.

            Cahit smiled a little as he thought back to more peaceful—more boring, in his opinion—days in Mihriban when he and Emre drove their mothers to distraction sparring in the yards. He clapped the younger man on the shoulder warmly and assured him, “Forget about it. It’s good she knows people are keeping an eye on her.” Emre smiled in return and was sent off to relax after the morning of drilling.

            A moment later, Cahit left the inviting view of the sea behind him and headed back to the confines of the camp, where his men were finally wallowing in laziness—for a little while, anyway—like the rest of the soldiers in the camp. There was no mystical secret as to why the Mihribans were the elite fighters of the Necati force: they simply had the discipline that King Eyup lacked, both personally and as a military leader.

            Cahit stepped through the leather strips into his hut, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. The girl was sitting on the pile of blankets and furs that passed for the bed on the far side of the small space; she gave Cahit the briefest of icy glares before she resumed rubbing her injured ankle. He barely restrained an exasperated sigh as he stripped off his leather armor—she had no idea how lucky she was, to be with someone who wasn’t going to beat her for even _thinking_ about going outside. Someone who didn’t keep her tied up in the hut in the first place.

            Cahit splashed some water over his head and chest in a half-hearted attempt to wash away the sweat and dust that built up under the blazing sun; he noted wryly that the girl had averted her eyes studiously from his naked figure, though she had seen it all already. He kept an inscrutable eye on her—more to unnerve her than anything else—as he tied a long kilt around his waist and padded barefoot to the bed. She gave him a suspicious glance as he sat down opposite her and held out his hand.

            “Give me your foot,” he prompted, but she only narrowed her gaze. Irritated, he grabbed her leg and pulled her foot onto his lap to examine it.

            “I wasn’t trying to run away,” she said suddenly.

            “I know,” he replied matter-of-factly. He was quiet for a moment, gazing critically at her ankle. “You should stay away from the other camps,” he warned her, over her hisses of pain as he gently probed the tender flesh. “The Mihribans will recognize that you belong to me and won’t bother you—but the rest of the Necati won’t.”

            “Yes, I’d hate for one of the Necati to knock me down in the sand and break my ankle,” she snapped sarcastically, and he probed a little less gently for a moment. “Ow!”

            “There’s nothing broken,” he assured her decisively, dragging part of a blanket out of the pile beneath them. He tore a ragged strip off the edge and began wrapping her ankle tightly. “Don’t get into trouble,” he continued casually, “and be back by nightfall.”

            Adoette looked at him in confusion for a moment, then started to smile as she realized he was giving her permission to wander around outside. “Alright.”

            Her ankle securely bound, he pulled the rest of her onto his lap. “If ever you don’t come back,” he told her seriously, looking up into her brown eyes, “I would hunt you down. Like a runaway dog.”

            Against her better judgment, Adoette quipped back, “How much effort would you put into finding a _dog_?”

            Cahit tightened his arms around her. “If the dog belonged to _me_ , I would find it,” he replied with a finality that was just a little bit chilling. “And try not to _speak_ , at all,” he added more lightly, “if you want to stay out of trouble.”

            She slid her arms over his shoulders, enjoying the play of muscles beneath his warm skin. “But my tongue is the only weapon I’m allowed to carry,” she pointed out, and he almost smiled. Almost.

            “Too dangerous,” he told her. “You’ll need to be disarmed.” With that he covered her mouth with his own, cutting off her reply. Cahit pushed her back down onto the bed. “And you should stay off that ankle for a few days.”

**

            “Hurry up,” Cahit ordered irritably, stepping partway into the dim hut.

            Adoette glared at him from the wash basin. “Don’t rush me!” she snapped in return.

            He rolled his blue eyes in exasperation. “Everyone else is ready to leave!”

            “Everyone else is a man,” she pointed out, trying to pick out her reflection in the water and pulling at her hair. “What did _they_ have to do to get ready? Put on their least-dented armor?”

            “Come on!” Cahit sighed, feeling as though his commands were completely useless.

            “Don’t you want me to look nice when everyone sees me?” Adoette asked innocently, stalling for time as she brushed the wrinkles out of her skirt.

            “You look—“ he began automatically, then paused when she moved into the shaft of sunlight near the door. The dress he’d acquired in a raid was perhaps a bit big for her, but the moss green color highlighted her deep brown eyes and pale skin, and her dark curly hair had been pulled back with a scrap from the hem. “You look fine,” he finished shortly, yanking himself back outside to glare at his men who stood waiting. They, at least, knew not to try his temper and quickly lowered their eyes and stopped mumbling to each other. The girl, however, would likely not let him forget his admiring pause.

            Just when he was about to drag her out, Adoette emerged from the hut looking more regal than a peasant-girl-turned-prize-of-war had any right to. She’d never pass for a princess, with no gaudy jewelry or flower-trimmed hair, but in a military camp that saw mostly bedraggled slave girls and desperate prostitutes, she was a queen. As long as she kept her mouth shut, Cahit added to himself.

            Cahit kept a firm grip on her hand as the Mihribans wound their way through the maze of camps to the center square. Adoette had been in Cahit’s possession for nearly a month now but she had never ventured beyond the Mihribans’ circle of huts on the north point—brawny, armed men with little female companionship did not make a good crowd to wander through, she had decided. But with Cahit close at hand—not to mention the rest of the Mihribans, whom she all knew by name now—she was excited about seeing the rest of the encampment.

            Most of it was similar to the Mihribans’, of course—tents or huts, row upon row, with fire pits and makeshift stables, though somehow the other groups’ camps seemed muddier and more squalid. All were deserted at the moment, except for a few sentries who looked desperately envious of the people walking by. Adoette had never before understood the vastness of the military camp perched on the edge of the beach, but as they passed hundreds—even thousands—of little dwellings, each with piles of untended shields beside it, each marked with the standard of the owner’s legion, each home to up to four men, she began to grasp the huge numbers that the men in the silent walled city on the hill were facing, and she shivered a little bit.

            “Are you cold?” Cahit asked her. His tone was sharp as ever; words were not his strong suit, either tender or otherwise, but the fact that he asked at all was significant.

            “No,” she answered quickly, stepping around a puddle. “But are we almost there?”

            The sound of a large body of men cheering answered the question for her, as the group of forty or so Mihribans paused at the edge of a great clearing. Hundreds of wooden tables had been set up and were crammed with men in their light armor, laughing, talking, shouting, stuffing their faces, drinking. Even so, great crowds were pressed around the edges, waiting their turns at the tables. In the fading light blazing torches were lit, and serving lads wove around them delivering trenchers of meat and ewers of wine to the raucous diners. Adoette stepped closer to Cahit, wrapping her free hand around his upper arm. It all looked so chaotic, so uncontrolled.

            Despite the shortage of space the Mihribans managed to find a table for themselves—unsurprisingly, given their reputation as the fiercest fighters in the army, few people protested their use of the furniture. Cahit kept Adoette safely locked between himself and his young cousin, Emre, who made a surprisingly pleasant dinner companion. He frequently pointed out to Adoette when one of the stories told by the men was exaggerated, and he explained to her the history behind their jokes that made them all the funnier. Cahit was not one for telling stories or jokes, but his occasional dry remark sent the table into an equal uproar. How much of it was good humor and how much wine Adoette wasn’t sure.

            She tried to behave herself; even in only a month most of the men at the table had experienced her wrath at some point, but that was confined to small groups in their own camp. To let her tongue get away from her in public would disgrace Cahit, and she knew that was one thing he could never forgive. Many strangers had staggered by their table to clap Cahit on the shoulder—or, if more sober, to stand at a respectful distance—and make some remark about his talent and courage; those who were drunk enough to touch him were often drunk enough to cast lingering gazes at Adoette. It made her rather uncomfortable, but Cahit seemed to like showing her off—as long as everyone knew who she belonged to. She supposed it wasn’t really that much different from sitting at state dinners being ogled by foreign dignitaries.

            Where they had gotten the food and entertainment for the feast, she had no idea, but the serving lads kept depositing wild fowl and boar, apples and grapes and nuts, hard bread and sweet honey cakes, and the aisles thronged with fire-eaters, snake-charmers, jugglers, and dancing girls. Granted, none of the performers were dressed as well as they would have been at court, and the dancing girls’ main talent seemed to be avoiding the lecherous swipes of the feasters, but still it was enjoyable. Cahit had even smiled at her a few times, Adoette noted, and laughed instead of chastising her when she glared at the dancing girls who swarmed them.

            They were all laughing at a story told by Ozqur—involving a dye merchant, a donkey, and a pair of old sandals—when the copper ewer of wine on the table was emptied yet again. Unfortunately no one appeared to refill it quickly enough for the thirsty warriors and they began arguing good-naturedly over who should fetch more. It was amusing at first, but as soon as one laughingly refused because he was “a valiant warrior, not a servant boy,” Adoette realized that it was only a matter of time before—

            “Stop arguing,” Cahit told them. “The girl will get it.”

            His command was met with cheers and Adoette had little choice but to rise and wander off into the crowd, heading vaguely in the direction of the wine casks. She didn’t like being separated from the people she knew in the loud, jostling crowd, but likely no one would notice her anyway—she was just one more servant scuttling about, fetching things.

            Cahit kept an eye on her until she had disappeared into the throng of people. She was the only slave in the Mihribans’ camp, after all, and if more wine was needed it was she who should get it. Still, even a quiet, circumspect woman might have trouble in this group of high-spirited young men—and Adoette was normally anything _but_ quiet and circumspect. Still, she’d hardly said a word tonight, except to laugh—she had a very nice laugh—so perhaps she was intimidated enough to behave herself.

            “Cahit!” At least this greeting came from a friend instead of a drunken clod, Cahit though as Arif, the King of Ilhan, clubbed his shoulder lightly and dropped down beside him at the table. “An excellent victory! Your men turned that line around as if you had rope tied to every soldier!”

            The Mihribans cheered raucously at the compliment, but Cahit commented shortly, “If Eyup put _real_ commanders in charge, instead of the nobles who gave him the most gold, the men wouldn’t have scattered in the first place.”

            Arif nodded reluctantly. “It’s true,” he admitted with a smile, “that I saw Lord Umit racing back to his tent as fast as his overfed mount could carry him. But,” he added sardonically, “that is what _you_ are for, to fix the King’s mistakes!”

            “To clean up his—“ Cahit stopped suddenly when he heard a familiar sound rising above the din.

            “—you foul-mouthed, overgrown wastrel son of a—“

            He sighed and jumped up from the table—he knew he shouldn’t have let her go off alone. Arif and the other Mihribans craned their necks to watch him approach a certain dark-haired girl from behind.

            “—hairy brutish illiterate cur, I’d as soon chop off my own head as—“

            The man she was upbraiding, much to the astonishment of onlookers, was truly a giant, well over seven feet tall, with a long tangle of dark hair and a bushy beard—Coskun, leader of the Yavuz, and a fine man to have at your side in battle. But not, Cahit allowed, the most tactful when it came to social interaction. Currently he was also staring down at the girl in wonder, no doubt slightly confused by the stream of furious words spilling out of her. As long as she stuck to words, Cahit thought, she would be alright.

            But of course, the girl didn’t stick to words. When she realized the man towering over her wasn’t quite comprehending her utter contempt and hatred, she decided to make things perfectly clear to him—by tossing the wine she carried in his face. Cahit started running when he witnessed that, but Coskun swatted a huge hand at the girl as if she were an insect that had bitten him, slapping her with enough force to send her sprawling. The crowd cheered—they would have cheered anything at this point—but they sobered rapidly when Cahit appeared out of nowhere to grab Coskun by the throat and slam him down on a quickly-vacated table.

            Cahit just held him there for a moment, eyes blazing, not exactly certain what he intended to do. “Your girl, is it?” Coskun gurgled, sounding reasonably cheerful. Cahit nodded once. “Sorry, Cahit, no harm meant.”

            Cahit decided that was really all he needed—Coskun was, after all, an excellent warrior, certainly not someone to be feuding with. Especially when the girl had probably started it. So he released the larger man, glared at the crowd as a warning that he wouldn’t take future harm to his property lightly, and then hauled the girl to her feet and dragged her off without even looking at her.

            At the Mihribans’ table he plunked her back down roughly and resumed his seat. Fortunately the serving boys had finally caught up with their wine needs, so after a moment of uncomfortable silence they began their entertainment again. Both Arif and Emre were leaning around Cahit, trying to get a look at the girl, but when she started to speak, her master snapped, “Be quiet! Not a word out of you.” She sniffled but said nothing.

            Arif and Emre exchanged a look, then Arif dared to squeeze Cahit’s shoulder lightly and murmured quietly, “I have some news to tell you.” His tone indicated it was for Cahit’s ears only.

            Cahit was not really in the mood now. But Arif was a man he respected—one of the few of the commanders at this battle—and he understood his words must be important. “She goes nowhere,” he ordered his cousin, who nodded immediately. No doubt Emre would treat her more softly than she deserved.

            Cahit pushed himself away from the table, leaving his men feasting cheerfully, and followed Arif to what passed for a quiet corner in this melee of soldiers. Cahit crossed his arms over his chest and gave his friend a look that suggested this had better be good. Instead, Arif glanced back at the table and asked, “Where did you get that girl?”

            Cahit did not want to talk about the girl. “Raid on the granary on the outskirts of the city,” he replied shortly.

            “Farmer’s daughter?” Arif said with some disbelief. “Not with that skin.”

            “I hadn’t really thought about it,” Cahit told him distinctly. _Get to the point_ was clearly written on his face.

            So Arif complied. “There’s a rumor going around,” he began quietly, “about a missing princess from the city. A princess who was last seen outside the walls, at a granary.”

            Cahit blinked at him. “Why would a princess be at a granary?”

            “That’s not the point,” it was Arif’s turn to convey. “As we just saw, your farmer’s daughter has an awfully good vocabulary.” Too good, perhaps, for her supposed origins.

            Cahit turned this idea over in his mind, though as usual it was difficult to read his expression. “Why are you telling me this?”

            “A princess makes a valuable hostage,” Arif laid out. Politics was not Cahit’s strong suit. “If one were about, the King would want possession of her.”

            “Good thing there’s not one about, then,” Cahit decided with finality.


End file.
